And Then Thread Ended
by shewhoguards
Summary: A less cheerful look on how life could go after Skies.
1. Chapter 1

And so the Pass ended, and we all cheered and shouted. The riders had not only saved our world, but ensured that it would _stay_ saved, and that Thread would never hit our homes again. I was no more than a child at the time, but still I remember the party in our Hold after that last Fall. It was like Turns End, but more so. There was dancing, music, presents for all the youngsters – we believed we had reached the point where we all lived Happily Ever After, and that was surely something to celebrate.

After that, the riders were our heroes for a time. For a while at least, no one grudged them the tithes they still took from us - they needed time to become self-sufficient afterall. But the years passed, and still they were asking for food, and slowly the resentment began to fester a little.

They told us they were still protecting dangers that we barely had knowledge of – more giant rocks like the one they had diverted before. Maybe we were naïve to believe them, but who was there to tell us otherwise? Still, a few more years went by, and the tithes increased rather than shrinking, enough so that we began asking questions again. Why were the giant rocks such a danger _now_ when they had never been before? Were _all_ riders needed to watch for them – and if so, why did _they_ seem to be leading lives of leisure while we worked in the fields all day? When would the tithes stop?

The day a Holder first refused to tithe is as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday. I was a young man by then, with a youngster of my own to care for, and Igen Hold was only two days ride away. It had been a particularly hot summer that year – we'd had problems ourselves with drought, and I'd heard rumours that Igen's crop had been only half its usual size. It was small enough that they would be struggling to support themselves on it for a year without parting with any of it, and so they decided that, quite simply, they wouldn't. The hungry bellies of their children were more important to them than fattening lazy riders who still showed no evidence of working for us.

The story of what happened spread all over Pern. Lord Drefel met the Weyrleader when he came to demand payment. He stated his case, determined not to be intimidated by the way Weyrleader Varyon's bronze kept growling. Afterall, everyone knew by now that dragons couldn't hurt humans. We knew we were safe from them harming us.

At least, directly.

No human was harmed when the fire that had once protected us was turned on barns filled with crops. No Holder died when bronze Rherith called his companions, and the whole Weyr hunted down Igen's herdbeasts – for sport, not food – until not one was left alive in the field.

No one was harmed. But you will find no Hold today where Igen once stood. The Lord Holder and his family starved to death that winter – minor Holders sought work elsewhere as drudges, but no one dared take the Lord in. No one dared risk the riders displeasure. And no one refused to tithe again.

Once the dragonriders had taken that step, there seemed little point in them holding back. They had shown that they had power, they had shown that they were prepared to use it, and now they spread their wings over our land, and we Holders ran in fear from their shadow. The Crafters were split – some Halls sided with the Holders, and were soon poorer for it, while others supported the riders and saw the benefits. The Harpers - once known for their fairness in adjudicating over Pern – became spies, reporting back any murmur spoken against the Weyrs. Without war, without any blood being shed, the riders had succeeded in doing what Fax had failed in, and conquered all Pern.

We grew accustomed to it within a few years. It is surprising what humans will accept, as long as they, and their families are left alive. We tithe whatever we are told to tithe, and we obey, and if that Hold a few miles over will not have enough food to last the winter, we take it as a lesson rather than protesting. Obviously they were foolish, and did not respect the riders who protect us so well from things we need not know about.

I am old now. My sons have sons of their own, children who have never known a time when things were not this way. They will grow up never fearing Thread, and we need not worry that they will be Searched and die in the skies, eaten by that deadly organism. Sometimes, I almost wish that we did still have that to fear. It was deadly, it was merciless, and it killed – but at least it never pretended it was anything other than that.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't our fault. We were left with no choice. We did what we had to.

We saved the _world_ – saved it repeatedly, risking our lives each time we rose to do so. And then we made sure that no pair would ever have to risk their lives again, and settled back into a peaceful retirement.

Or so we thought.

Self-sufficiency was what we talked about most then. I was barely out of Weyrlinghood myself – only three years Impressed to my blue Tenath – and I remember it seemed a grand dream. We didn't need to depend on the Holders for food – we could raise our own crops and cattle.

It was a beautiful dream, but like many dreams it shattered when brought into the harsh daylight. Whether Thread falls or no, our dragons still needed our care. Hide still needed to be washed and oiled, wings still needed to be exercised, Weyrlings and Candidates needed training. And the idea of riders setting up individual cotholds was doomed before it ever began – what gold or green would stand for her males living too far away to know when she rose? Humans might manage to live in tiny family groups, but dragons are social creatures and they needed the companionship of their own kind. We couldn't force our lifemates to survive in loneliness, and so we had to stay in the Weyrs.

It soon became clear that we could never hope to have to time to produce enough food even for our dragons, let alone for ourselves too, and so we fell back on other plans. Our dragons are magnificent creatures, but it became clear that without danger there was pitifully little we could do for the Holders in return for our food. We were not even truly needed to carry messages – not after the new machinery AIVAS had introduced to the world.

If we were to be seen to earn our keep, we needed a danger to protect the world from. So, we invented one. Yes, it was a lie - or a part-lie. What did you expect? It was that or let our dragons starve, and die out – and that was unthinkable.

We told them we were protecting Pern from more giant rocks falling. It wasn't such a hard story to spread. All we had to do was tell them that AIVAS had said that they would fall again and suddenly it became more credible. Over time though, it was a falsehood that needed more and more support. Mentioning that no rocks had been seen near Pern since that one near-disaster would have resulted in a quick curtailing of our tithes, and so we had to add to our story. Whenever a dragonrider visited a Hold, he was careful to talked about the huge stone that had nearly hit Pern only a few sevendays ago, gathering an audience of wide-eyed, awed listeners. Some riders even collected pebbles to show off.

Even so, we were ready for them to stop believing even that. We knew it was going to happen – we were not deaf to the murmured complaints. And we knew what we would have to do.

We killed _no one_. Let that be clear now. It was a lesson, and that was all. We simply took away the food. It was what they had been planning to do to us afterall. If people died as a result, their deaths were not our responsibility. Someone else could have fed them.

It was unfortunate that once that step had been taken, things could never be as they had been before. We needed food. The Holders would not give it voluntarily, and so we made them. It is they who were the villains, not us. We allowed them to keep some of their harvest, as long as they shared. They, on the other hand, would have had us starve to death. What kind of monsters would condemn the people who saved their planet to death by starvation? Had they not been so ungrateful, it would not have had to happen. They forced our hand.

We had to be careful after that. We had our dragons, but still if the Holders were allowed to form alliances then they might have had a chance to work us again. It could not be allowed to happen, and so we enlisted the help of the Crafts. A few were foolish enough to refuse, but most saw that dragons must be protected – especially when we repaid them from the tithes they helped us collect. A Hold that turned stubborn soon discovered it not only had no food, but that it had no Weavers, no Healers, no BeastCrafters. With the ability to exert such pressure, often it was not even necessary to wipe the rebellious Hold out completely.

The Harpers were the most useful of the Crafts. Ever the supporters of the Weyrs, they showed an amazing aptitude for gathering information, and for knowing just when a Hold was becoming restless. Their advantage came when talking to the youngsters they taught. A child knows no better to tattle on their parents, and if the adults are speaking badly of their protectors then the offending Hold can be dealt with before it ever organizes enough to become a serious problem.

It is not the world we would have wished for ourselves. We would much have much preferred that the Holders gave voluntarily than that we had to force our tithes our of them. But tell me, when they refused to tithe, and we had our lifemates to think of, what choice did we have?


End file.
